eBay has decided to be very cautious with the recent discovery of a security hole allowing someone to access the account details of users registered on the eBay Developers Program.

The actual details of the flaw or exactly how long it has been active have not been released by the auction company. In a post on its developer website entitled, “Important Security Update: developer.ebay.com” Kumar Kandaswamy, who manages the site, said:

eBay has recently identified a means by which someone could gain access to eBay Developers Program account information. This type of access DOES NOT allow the capture of financial or other sensitive information, such as credit card or bank account information or Social Security numbers. Fortunately, we have not detected any unusual activity with any Developer account.

The release goes on to tell users the steps they need to take in order to update a password, which now follows stricter rules. If you are one of the 87,000 or so registered developers then please heed this warning and update your password as soon as possible.

It’s a shame eBay hasn’t given details of the vulnerability and you would have thought if the security hole has been closed then sharing would not be of any consequence. As it stands some users may have been at risk, but eBay hasn’t detected any malicious activity and are just being very cautious, which is welcomed.

It’s also important to point out this is completely separate of eBay accounts used by buyers and sellers. This is purely a developer related notice otherwise there would be a much bigger fuss being made due to the link with payment services such as PayPal and the millions of users it would potentially include.